Does your animal suffer from car sickness?

[Big S]

Max became part of our family late last year after spotting him in an animal rescue centre. A wonderful placid 2 year old dog who has brought much joy to our lives already.

The only trouble is that he suffers from car sickness. He is fine if we are doing motorway journeys at a constant speed and on the straight but on the 'normal' roads he tends to share the contents of his stomach with us. Knowing how awful car sickness can be we are keen to seek a solution to this problem.

If anybody has any tips/advice/solutions to Max's problems please feel free to share them with us. We would be extremely grateful.

 

[AnnM1]

We had (sadly lost now) a lovely GS who suffered badly from travel sickness. It was just awful seeing him suffer each time we went away with the caravan. Needless to say, we didn't want to leave him home as he (like all our dogs) are part of the family.

We took advice from our vet. He prescribed tablets which calmed him down and he was a much happier traveller after taking one. He slept all the journey and woke only on arrival at site. A bit wobbly legged to start with but soon recovered his usual laid back attitude to life.

There is light at the end of the tunnel hopefully. My GS outgrew his sickness problem, al beit he was 9 years old by that stage!!!

It is worth having a word with the vet.

Best wishes

Ann

 

[BobT1]

Years ago there used to be a strap which attached to the bumper and touched the road. This had supposed to earth the car & stop car sickness.

Used to work for our youngest & might be worth a try.

 

[GrahamPonty]

Hi,

We used to have a problem with one of our dog's (sadley no longer with us) I used to do a lot of sea fishing at the time and was always left looking over the side of the boat wishing I was back on dry land. My doctor told me to try a tablet called Sturgeron, take two four hours before I got on a boat then one every six hours, It did the trick for me never look back again.

I tried these tablets with our dog only giving her one tablet four hours before travel and no more travel sickness after that.

You can buy Sturgeron over the counter at your local chemist or Tesco's.

Hope this helps

Graham (Ponty)

 

[richard_374410045]

hi big s

we have a 9 month old golden retriever we give sea legs 30 mins before we set of and shes fine available from the chemist.cost

 

[Big S]

Many thanks for your advice. I'll certainly try some of these out over the next month or so when we are away.

 

[catherine2]

We have a one year old dog who suffered very badly from car sickness. We made sure we didn't feed him for a few hours before taking him out in the car, which helped to reduce the amount of vomit. However, he also salivated to the extent the back of the car was soaking - i imagine this was due to nervousness. The only non medication cure is to desentitise the dog very slowly. First of all just get him to sit in the car for a few minutes without going anywhere, but with you being there too. Then drive down the road and take him out for a short walk. Over the course of a few weeks, gradually increase the journey time and give him a reward at the end of the journey - such as a run or a walk or a visit to friends. Although this method does seem frustratingly slow at times, it does work in the end - in our case it took 9 months but he is now so relaxed he will even jump up in the car himself on occasions, whereas at the start he refused to walk anywhere even in sight of the car.

As someone else commented, dogs (like children) do grow out of this as long as you do not become avoidant in your own behaviour too.

Good luck!

 

[elizabeth_374311239]

Hi we have a 2 yr old russell, its so good to know were not on our own, with the travel sickness, we bought a cover for the car and put inco pads down(which i get from work)to try and protect the back seat, like most she,s ok on motorways, just goes to sleep, but get off onto sm roads and the vomiting stars, the good thing with the cover is we just swill it down and leave it to dry, ready for the journey home.

Will see the vet to see if we can get something, I hate all the mess, makes me feel queesy.

 

[Royston]

Hi Big S can confirm what Richard confirmed , when we had a ford escourt estate, our Kerry Blue used to suffer from travel sickness, we started giving her qty 1 Sealeg tablet( she weighs 16Kg) since we upgraded to a Vauxhall estate the need to give her the sealeg tablet has ceased.

Royston

 

[JulieandStuart]

We collected our 10 week old Japanese Spitz puppy from Oxfordshire back in March (we live in Manchester) and she was really travel sick; as we're also showing her and going all over the country we need to find a solution. We tried her on a herbal travel sickness tablet but didn't want her to become dependent on them so we tried the good old fashion "exposure" - each day we took her on short journeys around and about, at the end of each journey was a treat (places she loves to play etc) and sometimes a dog treat - we continued to do this for a couple of weeks and now she's fine. On all of our trips though we stop after about an hour to let her "stretch her legs" etc - she loves the car (and the caravan!!)

Good luck, I know how distressing it can be.

 

[Big S]

Thanks everyone for your kind repsonses.

Catherine, your dog sounds exactly like Max! I don't think Max's problem is due to nervousness as he is really keen to jump into the back of the car whenever the estate door is open, even on the return journey that he has been sick. We never have any problems in him getting into the car and have taken him on quite a few small journeys also to build up his confidence.

I posed this question on a dog forum site and get many various suggestions, similar to the ones you have all kindly suggested. One of the suggestions to cure travel sickness was to use ginger. So off I tripped to the supermarket to buy a piece of ginger but there was no way he was having any of that (well you wouldn't would you yourself! certainly not raw). So we bought some smart price ginger biscuits from the supermarket.

No problem with admisistering these!! as Max loves them. I must admit I was abit sceptical at first but these two last weekends we have been out and about and (touch wood) they appear to have worked so far. Today we have been out to Southport which entails A roads for the majority of the way. We still get a bit of saliva but no sick so far.

As our next trip out with the van is our main holiday and entails a journey from Cheshire to Cromer in East Anglia I am keen to see if the use of ginger biscuits is a suitable cure for such a journey. I'll certainly be buying some sea leg tablets or Sturgeron as a back up just in case.

Will keep you posted as to their effectiveness.

 

[SMS]

Hi,

Please, please, please only give medicines designed for humans under advisment from a vet.

 

[ShadySadie]

We had a familly border Collie 30 years that threw up on car journeys, I bought a Renault 5 and she sat in the boot rather than the rear seat position where she laid down or got on the floor. As soon as she could sit up safely with the back of the rear seat as a safety barrier from her sipping of a seat on to the floor she was instantly fine.

At around the same time neighbours had a German Shepherd that was regularly sick on car journeys, they took him on a journey in an estate car where he could sit up in the boot in safety and he was fine. Back in the family sallon car he was sick again so they made us laugh when they said that they only bought a new Cortina Estate for the dog.

Up to date, friends husband lost his job and his BMW tourer went. In between jobs he had a Toyota hatch, the dog travelled in the back but had to lie down and was sick after a few miles, sat up in the back of his wifes Golf doggy was again fine. The Husband now has another estate car and sat up proudly in the rear the Retriever is OK.

So may be the lesson in some cases is for the dog to be in a secure position where they can see out. Rather than laying down on a seat to prevent themsleves from slipping in to the foot well or sitting in a foot well.

 

[Gafferbill]

As SS says the dogs are sick because they cannot see out of the car window.

They need to relate the physical jolts they are getting from the movement of the car to what they can see.

If all they can see is the inside of the car, their confused brain causes them to vomit.